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"Lake Baikal..." в энциклопедии:

To get to know what fish are common for the Baikal and the rivers that flow in the lake it is enough to take a look at the map. We use this method one more time to see the aborigine names of fish on it. The so called “Children of the taiga”, the Evenki have always treated the water creatures partially. The names of River Turkukit near Davshi and of River Turka that is situated in the middle part to the east of the lake originate from the name of the omul, the most common fish in the Baikal. The names of River Shiringley and the Gap Shiringley (Siringley) show the presence of the salmon trout; the name of River Neruchanda, flowing into River Sludyanka in the north of the Baikal shows the presence of a great amount of the grayling. The lake that Russians call Frolinnoe, has the name of Davatchan in the Evenki culture; they call so a special species of red fish, inhabiting here.

The Russian fish names have River Nalimikha (comes from the word nalim – “a burbot”), flowing out of Lake Kudaldinskoe, and River Nalimovka situated in the north of Goryachinsk. The inlet in the Chivyrkuisky Bay is called Omuleva (comes from the word omul) and River Sorozhya (comes from the word soroga – “a Siberian roach”) in Cape Sacred Nose; in the north of the Baikal there is River Yazovka. Perhaps, if one asks the local people in different parts of the lake they will name more than tens of such names of their favourite places.

The fact that when Russians came to the shores of the Baikal, they have immediately become fishermen, is not surprising, such is a tradition of the people. But it turned out that Buryats, these sons of steppes, also have long-term relations with fishing. In summer time they incamped near rivers where they fed their livestock, and went in for fishing. “Fish was one of the major types of food and an object of adoration. In the ancient sacred images hureg and modern ones zurag one can see fish among other animals… that evidently proves that long times ago Buryats deified fish. Fish was used for cooking and officiating”.

Among different gears Buryats had creels that were made of willow twigs, nets woven of horse hair, rods, burgs and so on. At the beginning of summer fishing Buryats officiated to ask Ukhan-khat (the water deity) to present them a rich haul, and to prevent people from misfortunes while fishing. In autumn they officiated to thank the deity for happy living near the water and for the rich haul. Thus, the fishing rites of modern people living on the shores of the lake have a long history.

One of the first statisticians of fish industry in the Irkutsk Province and Verkhneudinsk District of the first half of the XIXth century A.M. Kurbatov called the Baikal “a deposit of fish supply in the Irkutsk Province”. In the Baikal with all its sor bays 50 kinds of fish harbor, among them 17 were fishery. They are the omul, whitefish, grayling, goldilocks, sturgeon, trout, burbot, pike, perch, roach, ide, dace, minnow, yellow-winged goby, and the adapted to the Baikal Amur carp, catfish and bream. We must say that the fishing value of these fish is unequal.

Till the middle of the XIXth century the Baikal was known as a lake very rich in fish. Numerous valuable kinds of fish were taken here, such as the sturgeon, grayling, and trout. But during the whole period of the fishery, especially in the XIXth century, the major part of the catch was composed of the omul and sturgeon.

The first who at the beginning of the 60s of the XVIIth century learnt that there is the Baikal sturgeon in these places was the exiled priest Avvakum Petrov. In the description of his trip from Dauriya to Tobolsk he mentions that Russian fishermen who he met near the mouth of River Selenga “gave me as much food as I needed, I saw about 40 sturgeons brought up, and they said: “This is for you, father, the God gave it to us and take it all, it is your share”. This fish surprised Avvakum. “Do not fry it on a pan, it is too fat”.

In the first half of the XIXth century the sturgeon fishery in the Baikal was described by the well-known people of the Baikal region A. Kurbatov and P. Pezhemsky. Pezhemsky said the following: “The sturgeon fishery was hold between the 1st and the 10th of April close to the mouth of the Selenga River. It is caught under ice with the help of nets (it was called “to hole fish”). The fishing can be successful at this period, sometimes rather good, and from time to time even bad and unprofitable. The sturgeons that are caught are knitted to fish strings and kept in ice-holes till transportation; first one makes a hole in the nose of every sturgeon with the help of an iron tube, then one puts a two-yard hemp robe that is ready made and is called “a fish string” into the hole. In that way every caught sturgeon is strung, then the string is tied up to a special long robe and put into water; the sturgeons are left there till there is enough of them and everything is ready for transportation. The sturgeons are transported in a special type of sleighs with a chest; the bottom of the chest is covered with moss and on it there put still alive sturgeons in one row, without taking the fish strings out, then the fish are covered again with moss, and the sleighs are ready to go”.

Kurbatov tells us about a more tragic fate of sturgeons brought up from River Selenga to the fair in Irkutsk. On the way of more than 200 km long the sturgeons are strung (289, p. 90)

In the Baikal basin there were sturgeons that weighed up to 200 kg. In 1911 before the first imperialistic war five kilometers down Verkhneudinsk (now Ulan-Ude) the fishermen specializing in sturgeons, caught an enormously grand sturgeon with three walled tammel nets. When they brought it to Verkhneudinsk (for doing this they put it on a cart, having tied it and put wet bags on it to keep it fresh) the tail of the fish was hanging from the cart for almost half a meter.

This enormously grand fish was weighted on the big rocker balance near the trade rows in the center of the town with the presence of local policemen and the crowd that got bigger and bigger. The fish weighed more than 195 kg! There are no records in the chronicles that there were so grand sturgeons in River Selenga or in the Baikal. But such facts nowadays are just beautiful legends. The sturgeon depopulation was so great in the Baikal region that even artificial breeding of it cannot do much better because of the poaching of the fish.

But first of all the Baikal is famous for its omul. The Baikal omul is a kind of delicacy for local people and visitors (especially a mild-cured or hot-smoked one). But to be frank it is important to mention that apart from the local Baikal omul there exist one more kind of omul that is much better by its qualities and bigger by its size, it is River Lena omul that peoples many parts of this great Siberian River.

For a very long time the omul has been a roundfish in the Baikal. The ancient chronicle mentioned: “There are special people occupied with fishing and salting of the omul, they are merchants, burgers, and peasants. For these purposes Russians and Buryats have big and small boats, nets and all the necessary equipment made up especially for the Upper Angara and Barguzine fishing and salting. The departure of the boats to Upper Angarsk and Barguzine is held in May and the fishing lasts during all summer and autumn”.

In spite of the sufficient supplies of omul in the Baikal, in the XIXth century people experienced serious failures in its fishing as the result of both natural processes and poaching. There were a lot measures taken to prevent this tendency, for example the government issued different decrees on it. Thus, in 1872 the Irkutsk Governor-General issued “The Rules of Fishing during the Movement of Fish in Rivers Upper Angara and Kicher”. In the 90s of the XIXth century and at the beginning of the XXth century a lot of analogous decrees were issued in other places as well. In 1908 in Irkutsk a special meeting devoted to the questions of fishing was held; after it “The Rules of Fishing in Lake Baikal and Rivers Flowing into it” was issued.

But the rules were not always obeyed both during the tsar and the Soviet times. The omul fishing and poaching (especially during the hard famine periods of the war and after it) led to the great rundown of its population. A lot of articles emphasizing the enormously grand catches of omul were released in press. For example, B. Moskalenko who at that time was the head of the Ichthyology Lab of the Limnological Institute presented his article “Will Omul Inhabit Baikal?” in the “East-Siberian Pravda” in February of 1965. In this article he showed that in the Small Sea, one of the main “pastures” of the young omul, it had no time for fattening. The reason was that there were nets everywhere, that were set 2 – 3 kilometers from one another, and they blocked the way to the fish. The fish was doomed get into this or that net. The analyses held at that time showed that the catches consisted of 50 – 80% of young fish that has not reached their commercial value yet.

One more thing that affected the fish population was the fishing tradition that has come from famine war times, when the fish flowing down the rivers in autumn after spawning was caght. Having devoted all enegies to reproduction the fish let its body be taken away by the stream. On its way thousands and thousands of fish were doomed to get into the nets that were adequately called “grabbers”. One could “grab” fish without any limit. The fishing enterprises even were set plans of how much fish they had to catch. The grabbed fish increased in number in that way making high hills on the banks of the rivers to meet the target figures of enerprises. And that is not to mention small “grabberies” set by sole amateurs. Much good could such “grabber” orgies make for fish!

By the end of the 1960s the government had to introduce the taboo on catching the omul by any possible way. It is worth mentioning the positive effect of the ban of the commercial omul fishing in the Baikal that could help restore the fish population. This is reflected in the fact that the number of spahelp, the fond of spawn, laid by the fish in the places of natural spawning and also the spawn gathered for the purposes of industrial fish farming, increased greatly. So, in several years after placing the ban, in 1973 220,000 units of omul flew into River Selenga for spawning, 3,719,000 – into River Upper Angara, and 600,000 – into the Barguzine. Thecorrelation of population of the spawning omul in these rivers before the ban period with that of the after the ban period shows that the fish population increased twice in all rivers, and three times in River Angara.

One of the main reasons of the omul population reduction in the Baikal is poaching. My countryman, the very famous pisciculturist Victor Sobolev, provided me with a very unpleasant fact that the amount of fish that come from the Baikal to the Posolsky Sor for spawning would have been sufficient to put the Bolsherechensky Plant at full capasity, if there were no poaching. “I’ll give just two examples. Last September having got about 40,000 of an efficient omul in “Belskaya Mane” we let them go up the Big River. Less than 7,000 fish reached the cage base of the fish factory. The same experiment was carried out by our colleagues near the Prorva, where the omul comes from the Baikal to thePosolsky Sor. This time 200 individuals of spawning omul were tagged. Only 8 of them reached the the place of fishing out. Where did all the rest go? Did they come back? Did they die on the way? Neither this nor that. One thing remains certain the spawning fish got into poaching nets”. Mention to facts provided by the pisciculturist proves that the traditions of grabbing fish we have already mentioned are wide-spread even today and may lead to pitiful results. According to the data from the government the illegal fishing of the omul during the last years is as following: in 2003 it made 21%, in 2004 – 20%, in 2005 – 33%, in 2006 – 44% [96, p. 43]. The tendency is evident and it is no good.

Here it is important to mention that the omul as a cartilaginous fish in the Far East attracts poachers not for itself but also for its caviar that when salted hardly gives in famous red or black caviar. Apart from the omul caviar they store up the sturgeon caviar (very rare today), the grayling and pike caviar.

The poaching and environmental degradation in the Baikal region have a destructive effect on the destiny of the Baikal omul. Still, some consider that there is the third reason of why the population of omul restores very slowly.

All the fish factories have just finished the gregarious time when they let the omul larvae leave their incubation tanks. A billion of larvae. But it is well known that only a small part of this billion will survive and become fish. Unfortunately, that is the way this process goes in nature. At that the natural reproduction the survival rate is much higher than that of the artificial one. In the Big River in spring time by the moment of the omul larvae leaving the incubation tanks there is a great number of predator fish, especially in the river mouth. In literal sense they make a fest, devouring the larvae rolling in an endless stream to the Baikal. What is to be done? Pisciculturists think that it is necessary to create a special pond for breeding the larvae till they get young fish, and only then settle them in rivers and lakes with the smallest amount of predator fish.

But among the predators that eat the “baby-omul” there are not only fish. The Baikal ostracods of the middle size, amphipod shrimps, make no less harm especially during winter time. In the nets taken out from the depths of the lake the fish is very often covered with crustaceans. The longer the net is set the greater the loss is. Sometimes one takes out only fish bones that represent well-prepared fish skeletons. Amphipod shrimps eat the omul alive, and give it no chance to survive.

Speaking about the uniqueness of the Baikal omul one cannot consider it the only species of this family. In many shops of the Yakut cities you can buy the River Lena omul, a bigger, fatter, and very tasty fish. The author of this book managed to to try it on a picnic on the Lena bank near Yakutsk. It is a well-known fact that during the Soviet time there were attempts to adapt the omul to different ponds situated out of the bounds of Siberia. For example, about half a million spawn were transported to Kazakhstan to Lake Uzunkul in the 60s of the XXthe century. Very soon the test catch showed that the omul bred in Lake Uzunkul was not worse than its Baikal “brother” in weight and taste. There were numerous cases of that type and today one can find omul in different places of the world.

Glancing over different kinds of fish of the Baikal one’s attention is drawn to one endemic type, the Baikal oilfish. This fish is unique for several reasons.

First, it is a viviparous fish which is very rare in nature. There are two types of the oilfish, a big one and a small one, both types are viviparous. Some scientists consider that the presence of two kinds of oilfish proves that the Baikal used to be separated into two separate baisins.

Second, 45 – 70% of the oilfish is fat that is why it is so transparent and translucent; one can read printed texts through it.

Third, the both types are known for cannibalism. Even young big oilfish with the body 2 – 5 sm long eat the larvae of small oilfish. As if in revenge at the age of 2 – 3 years small oilfish individuals eat the larvae of big oilfish but in a very little amount. Scientists consider cannibalism a type of intraspecific predation as a way of adaptation to the environment regulation of its population according to the food supply.

One more peculiarity of the oilfish is that in spite the big population of this fish in the Baikal there is no commercial fishing of it. Though it would be very beneficial to use the oilfish to produce cod-live oil, and the therapeutic properties of this fish is well-known, especially in traditional Chinese medicine. But the point is that the oilfish is an “individualist”, when it grows up it never gets into a school and usually swims alone mostly in the depths of the Baikal. It goes without saying that it is not profitable to catch these individualists in the depths of the Baikal. But since the XVIIIth century there have been cases when storms threw out very huge schools of the oilfish on the shore of the lake. Local people rendered fat out of it and sold it to China through Kyachta. At the beginning of the XXth century A.M. Stanilovsky mentioned that a big amount of the oilfish was caught into under-ice nets set for the omul. The researchers, who dived into the depth of the lake on “Paysis”, found out very interesting habits of the oilfish that had not been known before. The fish dove, crashed into the ground, swam up again as if plowing the silt upper layer and were getting food that way.

At all times the attitude of a man to fish has always been pragmatic and utilitarian, if compared with other animals apart from different bugs. People have always had their pats among different animals such as dogs, cats, horses, monkeys, guinea pigs, etc. First of all it was connected with the feedback of “our younger brothers”; they got used to a man, could behave accordingly to the mood of their master and demonstrate their feelings to him. As for fish, they have to “keep silent” about anything they feel to a manl, and this comes at a high cost to them. Except aquarium fish and very huge fish species such as the shark, people talk about concrete species of fish in the “edible – non-edible”, “tasty – not-tasty”, “fried or boiled” ways.

But still there is a group of people who can talk about fish without stopping, discussing information about its habits, mores, behavior, bait, etc. Of course, these are fishermen, professional and amateur. Fishing in the Baikal has always been a psychologically exciting and entertaining occupation. I often recollect how during the first days of freezing-over in the Proval Bay half of local men and women from Oymur went fishing. The holes were gauged one close to another but there were fish enough for everyone, the fish came to the bay from the Baikal that was not yet covered with ice and enveloped by autumn storms. There were so many screams of excitement especially on the part of kids and women when pikes, perches, Siberian raoches were pulled out onto the ice. Such admiration and ecstasy is the best stimulus for fishing.

However melt with these feelings of the fishermen it is important to mention that such ice-fishing was very often forbidden not only by the monasteries that owned fishing grounds, but also by the mundane meetings. At the beginning of the XXth century on the eastern shore of the Baikal it was permitted to fish only big fish with the nets with the big cells (6 – 10 sm). That was done because of the fact that at starving time in autumn and winter fish threw itself to any type of bait indiscriminately, even if it was only a moving rod hook. And the fishermen fishing on ice (locals called them bormashevshiky that comes from the word bormash – “a small crustacean used as a bait”) turned to catch even the smallest fish, and consequently they made harm for the Baikal fish reproduction. That was the evil that real masters of the Baikal fought with. The citizens of Goryachinsk, for example, performed special raids to catch the “breakers of fishing rules”.

But the ecological details described above are not popular today and the fishermen today are still exalted. The passion for fishing becomes one of the main attributes of their life providing them with the number of advantages over “ordinary” people:

The pastime a rod or any other fishing stuff is a very good anti-stress remedy that helps to get rid of negative emotions connected with work and household problems.

For people who have got used to live the life of a fisherman this hobby became not only the way of living but also brought some sense to their life, some feeling of completeness and importance of time devoted to something they like.

The luckiness in fishing as well as sapience in making stuff for getting fish activity, appropriate places, extremely surprising specimen of the caught fish – all these and some other fishing results enhanced prestige and social status of a person not only among other fishermen but often among their friends and friends of their friends; all these satisfied the need of self-evaluation and self-respect (try and read stories and advice of well- known lairy fishermen of the Baikal region and the Angara River to see this fact).

The team work with “the same specimen”, common interests and numerous stories prepared for different occasions very often created a pithy social circle when people talked not only about the great catches but also about different other topics; the verbal flow was very often stimulated by alcohol (there is a well-known anecdote about fishing skills in Russian: “there is nothing difficult in fishing – just take your glass and drink”).

One of the democratic advantages of fishing is that “it is like in a bath-house: there are no ranks and titles there”.

Very often extreme situations on the ice or during a storm at the Baikal, challenges that people had to overcome together, produced very definite criteria of choosing “ice” friends according to the rule: “this one won’t betray” (perhaps, the well-known Russian proverb “fisherman sees a fisherman from far away” derives from this principle. In English it sounds like “birds of a feather flock together”).

Thus, fishermen can be called a “specific nation”, taking into consideration their close connection with nature and their “spirit of fellowship”, based on common interests and situations they get togehter. It is not by chance that we decided to look at the peculiarities of these people. To our point of view, their potential, their desire to do much to make fishing lucky is very poorly used for ecological purposes, for the protection of nature. Each of them understands very well that the effective environment protection activity consists, first of all, of fish supplies revival in all reservoirs and in the Baikal in particular. These people can become an ecological voluntary army that can really make it in thesphere of environment protection. More over it should be noted that the Baikal fishermen have a lot of “brothers” both in Russia and abroad. Those of them who visit the Baikal can satisfy their fishing passion but also make an affordable contribution to the Baikal protection.

It is worth making a few remarks on the Baikal fish cuisine. In spite of the fact that this cuisine inevitably resembles that of the Russian peasants and Cossacks living close to different ponds, this cuisine is still specific. The main peculiarity of it is that Siberian people, who are comers from different places of Russia, kept up their traditional dishes but also used different techniques of cooking, and as a result they created absolutely new delicacies. Here is one example from my personal experience. At the beginning of the 90s of the XXth century I welcomed V.V. Davydov, an academician, Doctor of Psychology, who had come to the seminar organized by the Buryat psychologists together with Czechoslovakian professor L. Pozhar at my home place village Oymur situated near the Baikal. I asked my now-deceased Uncle Vasya and Aunt Maria to prepare a real Baikal dinner for such important guests and provided them with an appropriate sum of money. Perhaps, it was not only the desire to please their nephew but the comprehension that that was the first and, perhaps, the last reception of such guests made my relatives do their best. One could find everything on the table: pike “balls” and cutlets with garlic and without it, carps, fried in oil with egg covering, fresh sturgeon soup, omul in all its roles: fresh salted, smoked, sun-dried; jellied perch with the specific Baikal sauce…Well, all of these was finger-licking good. To be honest, I have never savoured some of these pretentious novelties myself. There was neither time nor money in our family to cook such things. But it turned out that the memory of the Baikal cuisine is still present in mind and actions.

It is necessary to pay special attention to raskolotka (comes from the word raskolot – “to split”), an omul on a pole and “a gamy omul” as to Baikal dishes. Raskolotka in northern and other Siberian places is called stroganina, i.e., slices of frozen fish or meat served cold (comes from the word strogat – “to plane”); this frozen fish is served with bread, salt and spices (black pepper, first of all). The Russian prefer to pommel, or break the fish (especially on the doorstep with the help of a hammer).

Omul on a stake is a kind of shashlik made of this Baikal fish. The main condition of its cooking is hot coals in the heat of which the fish is fried in its own juice. A pole in this case is a special planed stake set in inclined position on which an omul is strung; after that the pole with the fish is put over the coals. The best way of cooking it is to fry an omul without gutting it. In this case the fish juices and fat give the taste of a unique delicacy to it.

And now I want to speak about one dish I had a chance to try in my childhood, it is a gamy omul. Today one speaks a lot about the fish that is spoiled, and that one can easily get poisoned by it, and about a veryserious disease of botulism one can get when eating such fish. Of course, one does not have to neglect such unsanitary usage of fish by sellers irresponsible for hygiene and health of customers; our everyday life is full of such events especially on railway stations where passer-byes are very often sold everything but not the traditional Baikal delicacy.

But the gamy omul is something special. Let me provide you with an episode from the novel “The Steep Shores of Baikal” by F. Taurin the main characters of which Ivan, a young escapee from the hard labor in exile and an old fisherman, Nikita by name. “Ivan has heard at the plant that the omul can be a bit smelling, gamy or as locals call it “kamy”, and it is considered to be a local delicacy. Fishermen also told him about it on the way. Then Ivan marveled that people wanted a gamy omul more than a fresh one, why not to spoil all the fish then!

But it was not that simple, they explained:

The first thing, – said old Nikita, – is the degree, i.e., to make it gamy but not stinking. And, it cannot be stored for a long time. The moment you open your barrel sell the fish; if you cannot sell it – throw them away. So, do you see how it goes? And people do not simply buy it, but grab it.

Ivan made sure that these words are absolutely true the moment the sale started. Their counter was never out of customers. With joy they bought up the Small Sea omul. But the most brisk trade was at Nikola’s counter. Even maids and women who first came to look at Ivan, when smelled the gamy scent, went to the counter of old Nikita.

One young maid even made up to Ivan:

The merchant is likable, but the old man’s good is even more likable”.

Everyone has the right to be squeamish to such food. But it is necessary to understand that between unsanitary and the appropriate quality of the dish there is a backlash that permitted the Baikal fishermen find delight in such omul. The Baikal people were not the only ones who appreciated the delight of fermentation, a process of food change under the influence of the microorganisms when their ferments destroy the basic elements of the product. Any sour milk product or sauerkraut is also fermentation, but without so evident rot and smell. The gamy fish dishes are considered to be delicacy not only among the Siberian people but also in some other countries. For example, in Sweden there is a popular dish surstromming, i.e., a bit gamy herring. It is salted with little salt. As a result the process of fermentation starts. From the medical point of view some gamy products are very useful. According to the last research the “gamy cells” protect blood vessels from atherosclerosis and reduce blood pressure. It is they that provide the positive effect of the natural remedy garlic.

As for our squeamishness, in the past we could not imagine that we would get used to the dishes made of frogs, different types of raw fish (sushi), grasshoppers etc. We can just imagine how squeamish the fellows of Ivan and old Nikita from the novel of F. Taurin and other Baikal people could be.

We can not say that the unique fish products of the Baikal are widespread and used throughout whole Russia and, the whole world. It is very hard for the Baikal people to realize that for considerable quantity of countrymen and foreigners omul is just like a herring, and it “does not fit to wash fins” of a salmon and a sturgeon. Different people try to eat it in their specific way. I remember a story told by the Head of the Kolkhoz “Komintern” situated Kultuk. Once they sent a barrel of omul (25 – 30 kg) to the President of Czechoslovakia A. Novotny. The Head of the Kolkhoz himself chose and salted the fish. Then they said they liked the fish…but only after it was marinated it in milk and fried au gratin. This and many other examples prove that tastes differ.

And these unique products of the Baikal such as a gamy omul set me to recollect other specific dishes that local people had to eat at hard times, and that soon got away from the “mass” cuisine. For us, for children born right after the war, it was zavarukha (comes from the word zavarivat – “to brew”). I found a very colourful description of it by the famous ethnographer and writer N. Shchukin, in his book about the Yakut life: “First I thought the way Russians fed Yakuts to be barbarism, but then I found out that at home the latter ate the same. They put the unscreened flour to boiling water, lumps are smashed by a skimmer; when this paste is absolutely intimate they add a cup of milk, and that is it. This dish is called the Yakut porridge here. In spite of such unappetizing description of this zavaruha, or the Yakut porridge, I have had only positive impressions of its taste since my childhood. Perhaps, a very good version of zavaruha is the Buryat dish salamat which is brewing of screened wheat flour in sour cream. It tastes specific but very pleasant”.

From the fish and other dishes cooking let us pass over to the questions more humdrum but still very vital – some fish extinction. By the beginning of 1990 the following fish were registered in the official list of the Baikal and Transbaikal territories as rear: the Baikal sturgeon, the davatchan, the trout, the Baikal white grayling and the tench of carp-like fish and many others. Today we have to do a lot to shorten this list and to take care of the Baikal fish as well as of birds and animals of the region.